


Like a Phoenix

by Leonawriter



Series: 5Ds Flipped AU [2]
Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's
Genre: AU of an AU, Alternate Universe - Role Reversal, Gen, Kiryu pulls a Homura, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-12-26
Updated: 2013-12-26
Packaged: 2018-01-06 06:54:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1103801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leonawriter/pseuds/Leonawriter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Kiryu is defeated by Yuusei despite all attempts to make his friend see reason, he is granted the 'wish' to turn back time and do it all over again by Ccapac - god of Travellers, which of course includes TIME travel.  Little did he know that Ccapac was serious, and that he'd learn the lesson of 'be careful what you wish for'.  He's got years ahead to look forward to - many, many years of trial and error until he finally gets it right, and even then life won't be quite what he'd hoped for when he'd started out.</p><p>It's preferred you've read 'From the Ashes' first, but not completely necessary.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

"Ha… looks like in the end… not even this could satisfy me… Yuusei… you didn’t listen, at all…"  
  
“No! KIRYU! I-!”  
  
“Don’t… _don’t leave_ … I wish… I could do it over… _Ccapac…_ ”  
  
“C-Ccapac?! Kiryu, what are you-?!”  
  
The Astronaut, the God of Travellers and Journeys, He who had watched over Kiryu Kyousuke for three years already, had little enough strength, and was already fading. But for something like this…   
  
“Kiryu? KIRYU!”  
  
Kiryu Kyousuke vanished from the field - not as the dust of defeat, but a shimmer, as though he’d never been there, and as Fudo Yuusei watched the empty space with confusion, so too did the timeline reset itself.   
  
He woke up in the past. In an old hideout he’d thought long since gone, with just a few meager belongings… and his old deck. The one he’d had before Security had taken it away from him. The cards seemed almost unfamiliar to him now, though, and he searched vainly until he found one card, a card that had somehow stuck in his pocket even though he’d not put it there.  
  
 _Earthbound God Ccapac Apu_ , it read. Faded, though, how was it faded so much?  
  
 _"The card is an extension of myself, Kyousuke,"_   the whispered voice of the god said, as if from a distance. _"It will be faded so until I have regained at least some of my power."_  
  
Well then. Wasn’t _that_ just grand.  
  
So. Where to start…?

…

First things first - find his team. Figure out where they were, and…

What? Tell them what he’d been through? They didn’t even know him at this point! The map he’d tacked onto his wall was completely white, and he even now remembered how excited he’d been when he’d first been making it, first been putting down the lines between the sectors in thick black marker, already putting forth plains in his mind.

He’d been so naive, he found himself thinking. Back then, he’d been… so single-minded.

And come to think, it wasn’t even as if he’d changed. He’d simply traded taking over Satellite with a - now failed, damn it _damn it damnit -_ gambit to save the world with a group of peole just as unstable as he was.

That would just have to be something else he fixed this time, then, right?

So. Like he’d said before - first things first.  He knew where Yuusei, Jack and Crow would be in two days’ time, but not _before_ then. Not unless they were at Martha’s. But if they were, it’d be kind of hard to explain how he knew where that _was_ ,since he was pretty sure that he’d never met the woman before he’d met _them_.

So he had two days to prepare. Two days. That wasn’t too bad, was it?

A quick glance on the walls reminded him of what little he had to do, and what lay ahead.

Four brown vests, all laid out proudly in place. He’d known who to give them to. If they’d accept. And they had.

He couldn’t envision a future where they didn’t. He tried to imagine it - going up to them and having them see in his eyes somehow all of the things he’d done, what this could have meant for them in another timeline, another time when he didn’t know what he did now, tried to imagine them walking away, and failed.

He was going to fix it this time, not make it worse. There was no reason for them to refuse.

…

They said ‘yes’.

Team Satisfaction was born again, and he found himself grinning at them - perhaps with eyes more jaded than before, but brighter, with just as much hope.

 _We can do this,_ he found himself thinking. _We can. And we can do it properly this time._ _I won’t let you down. I promise._

It was a _promise._

He found himself treasuring the little moments, the times they didn’t even know meant anything. Blowing up at the slightest provocation - things they wouldn’t know would anger him, things that would catch him unawares.

The duel cuffs shouldn’t have caught him unawares, but he found himself finding it hard to stay in character as someone without any issue when they were suggested, when Crow and Yuusei made them the first time.

He still had nightmares of Security. Of prison. He remembered cuffs in a different way, now. Even though he’d look in a mirror and there’d be no marker, he’d sometimes trail his finger down his face - from his forehead under his headband, down to his eye which he would close, and down his cheek.

Crow walked in on him doing it, once. He’d got one hell of a weird look for it, too - but then, Crow already, somehow, had a marker. He probably thought Kiryu was wondering what it’d be like, not having phantom pains, and seeing his reflection with the thought that something was _off_.

First one area was blacked in. Then another. And another.

His foreknowledge came into play far too often, and became far too useful. He remembered enough to know not to let that one duel gang the upper hand here, or where that one was so that they didn’t have to track them like they had last time. He remembered nearly losing Yuusei off the roof of a building, and made sure not to let that happen again.

_"Kiryu! This isn’t you!"_

He remembered, living it through, what Yuusei had seen. He’d changed. It would have been impossible to stay the same, but he’d changed more than he’d thought, when he looked in the mirror and remembered who he’d been, and who he’d become, and saw who he was _trying_ , so hard, to go back to being.

But not too much. Too much, and it’d all happen over again. It would, he knew it would, he’d hold too tight, and-

Yet at the same time, Ccapac was there. Always. A nudge here, a word to the wise there. He couldn’t ever let on that there was someone else on the team - they’d think he was insane, talking to voices only he could hear -  but there was. Always ghosting by his side. Ccapac would remind him, when he went too far.

This time, the map was blacked out far quicker than it had bee before. This time, he didn’t lose control of himself.

Patrols were had, yes, to make sure things were running smoothly - but this time, he made sure he didn’t become obsessed. A word to a duel spirit here or there, one that he knew would be able to tell him if there was a gang up to no good.  A tip to a kid who needed the money - as if any of them didn’t - or a card, or something, and they’d tell him if something was wrong.

He found himself… relaxing, almost.

There was little to do, but that was okay. It was. It was _okay_.

Because he had Yuusei, and he had Jack, and he had Crow, and Crow’s kids were looking up to _him_ now, too.  When he remembered how, originally, he hadn’t even given them a second glance.

Duelling was becoming a game again - not just a way of battle. That was okay, too.

The B.A.D area was still ‘out of reach’, but they’d pass that hurdle later. He could be satisfied with this, for now. When they were older, when he had time, he’d go over to Old Momentum, he’d find Rudger, he’d explain to him, he’d find Misty, make contacts…

But that was all in the future. He didn’t _need_ to think about all of that yet.

Months passed, months covering the time when, last time, he’d already been becoming paranoid.

Jack was still there. So was Crow.

It was _working_.

The wet weather was going to start setting in soon, but that’d be fine, too. They’d have somewhere to go - Satellite would… be fine without them for a while. They could hole up at Martha’s, or anyone else they knew, or pick an old hideout that was still watertight.

That was when he heard the rumours.

Security was getting _antsy_ , they said. There were a few people saying - just a few, not many, and only saying - that they’d taken to searching for the ‘last remaining duel gang’.

Kiryu had more or less ignored it, at first. He hadn’t done anything to earn their ire this time, so why bother with it all? He couldn’t have even dreamt of bombing Security when there were far more important things to do, like making sure he and the team got through this.

And then… then it _happened_.

Surrounded by uniforms-

_he couldn’t breathe_

-just like last time, but-

_his legs had turned to lead  
_

-this time he wasn’t to blame-

_he couldn’t move_

-and they were aiming at everyone-

_they were shouting at him and he couldn’t move_

-not just him this time but the others and he-

_Ccapac I don’t know what to do what do I do what do I how do I do this_

-was _scared_ , it was stupid, but he was-

_that was a shot_

-and now they were firing-

_no stop stop stop that no, please don’t that’s my-_

_-_ at his _friends_.

He fell to his knees.

What use had he even been, in the end? What… use…

Crow was shouting in his ear. Jack was trying to drag him away, but he was trying to get out of the younger boy’s grip - he couldn’t let it end here, he _couldn’t_ , Yuusei _wasn’t_ dead, he _wans’t_ \- and he heard screaming. Screaming… was that his voice?

He couldn’t hear Ccapac over the screaming.

"Kiryu! Kiryu, he’s… we’ve got to get out of here!"

"Kiryu, c’mon! D’you wanna end up like him too?!"

"Kiryu!"

_"Kyousuke?"_

He couldn’t breathe.

A card fell to the floor.

_Earthbound God, Ccaac Apu._

Jack and Crow stared at it, having never seen it before. Of course not. He’d never used it, never used his power as a Dark Signer when they were around. Of course they wouldn’t recognise it…

_reset_

It couldn’t end like this.

_resetresetreset_

He wouldn’t _let_ it end like this.

_Turn back the clock and reset the time-_

He’d fix it.

- _line_.

As many times as he had to. Because this… this, this wasn’t _acceptable._ He couldn’t be _satisfied_ with continuing a life like this.

_"Ccapac?"_

"Kiryu? Who- who the hell’re you talking to-?"

"You can do it, right? You can- you can _do it_?”

_"I can."_

Reset the timeline. Set it right.

He vanished from the view of Jack and Crow and the Security guards that had come after them, the card misting away with him that they’d also been staring at, sure that it must’ve been expensive, worth something, but the god was now gone, and so was he.

He woke up a year earlier, eyes wide and still seeing the prone body of his friend, shot by Security-issue guns, red staining his brown jacket. A jacket that lay pristine still on the floor, right where he’d left it the last time he was this age. Shivering, still feeling the cold, the wind, and the rain, even thought he sun was shining in bright if brisk and cold through his window.

…

AN: Okay, so as you probably know well enough by now, I roleplay this very version of Kiryu. Technically speaking, this isn’t the beginning of his story, even. 'From the Ashes' is (or at least the first part).

But, see, this is the beginning of the _time travel side_. The time travel Kiryu I play is set… oh, a good 500 years after this.

Yep. _FIVE HUNDRED_. By the end of this chapter he’s around 23, the same age as he is in canon by Crashtown, to put it in perspective. And each reset could, potentially, have anywhere up to 4 years.

Think Akemi Homura from Puella Magi Madoka Magica, and you’ve got the idea. Because basically? That’s where it all started, with me wondering what it’d be like if the guy was a time traveller. At first it was hilarious (I drew a picture of him dressed up as Homura, even) but then things like this and what I call the ‘Firestorm’ timeline happened. And things started to really _hurt._


	2. Chapter 2

When next he woke, it was to the sun blinding him in the eyes for a second time. 

He blinked several times until his eyes were used to the light, but then stared blankly at and through the window.

There was silence, outside - nothing. Not this far up. Or at least, not apart from the faint sounds that were the usual white noise of Satellite. But he could still hear the gunshots. He could still hear the screaming.

His screaming. Theirs. It all flowed together in his mind until none of it made any sense any more.

He turned himself over, flopping lifelessly onto his other side, so that he wasn't being kept awake by the sun, thinking dully that he should bother to set something up against the window, or put curtains up of some kind, or something, but couldn't dredge up the energy.

He dragged a thin blanket back around him, and closed his eyes again, still tense. Still twitching, remembering the sights even when his eyes were closed and the events themselves were long since past, and never to occur again.

The longer he lay there, the clearer some things became as he ran over and over them in his head, and the foggier some of the other details got.

_There was Yuusei, running to pull him out of the way as he stood there motionless, duel disk on and set like he'd just been duelling, shouting, and then there was blood, and at first he'd thought it was just the red of his t-shirt._

_He'd been wrong. But it'd happened so fast, and everyone had been shouting - the others, the other Security, everyone.  
_

_And Yuusei was the only one quiet, now, because he was falling to the floor, and there was nothing they could do to help him.  
_

Kiryu, in the present, angrily and with tears in his eyes, pulled his pillow over his head to no avail.

Nothing that covered his ears would blot out the sounds within his mind.

_"Kyousuke?"_

Ccapac, however, was ignored.

Every so often he would wake, only to stare soullessly over at the wall, or move only to find himself unable to do anything more, go any farther. With each day passed, he grew more and more lethargic, less willing, less capable, to do a single thing.

 _Your fault_ , his mind would remind him. _It's all your fault. It wouldn't have happened if you'd just moved._

He knew. He knew that.

_And you're just the same now, aren't you? Can't lift a finger._

What good would it do? It hadn't worked.

 _You'd only make things worse_.

He sighed, eyes resting on one unworn brown vest, and agreed with himself. He would. He already _had_.

 _Why_ couldn't he just have _moved_? It would have been- that easy. _Move._ Yuusei might not have died.

_He might have anyway, though._

And then, there was that.

_"Kyousuke? Remembering how things went the previous time, you appear to be running out of time."_

He ignored the god. It wasn't as though listening had done him any good before - it wouldn't change anything now.

 _"Kyousuke. I'd recommend at least getting something to eat and drink. You maybe resurrected with my power, but my power alone cannot_ keep _you alive."_

Nothing mattered any more, though, and if nothing mattered, then why should something like that? Besides. He wasn't hungry any more. Or thirsty. His mouth felt odd and sticky, his brain fuzzy like he was thinking through cotton wool, but-

_"Kyousuke, it has been a month and a half since your re-arrival in the past. It took only somewhat more than this for you to become close enough to death for me to find you. If you do not-"_

"SHUT UP!"

Anger, frustration, the reminder of his first death and self-hatred at the fact that Ccapac was undeniably _right_ was enough to get him to move more than a few inches, sitting up fast enough to make him dizzy and throwing out a hand as if to hit with it. He screamed, tearing at his hair, eyes clenched shut at the storm within his head, and eventually the energy he'd accumulated through the stress of emotion wore thin again, and he collapsed back onto the bed, curling in on himself.

"Leave me alone," he muttered, without intention either of being heard or care of being obeyed any more. "Leave me alone. Just _leave me alone_."

Ccapac Apu did as requested, retreating within to the temple he had been constructing within the boy's soul, which had been shattered as though by an earthquake by the events of the past months. There were foundations to reset and re-fortify, and after that, the bricks and mortar and the small details. Perhaps then, he might be more stable.

The god could only hope that the journey to his recovery would not be too harsh on them both.

A week later found a haphazard knock at his door, which surprised him enough to keep both his attention and focus. Not long enough or hard enough to make him actually get up and open the door, however.

_"Oii~!"_

He groaned, and rolled over, trying to ignore it on purpose, now. He knew that voice.

_"Oi! Kyou-chan~!"_

He threw his pillow haphazardly at the door, which only resulted in a dull thump and the knowledge that he'd have to actually go over and pick it up at some point, which only made his already awful mood worse.

"Get lost!"

_"Hah! So you are here then, Kyou-chan!"_

"And don't call me that!"

_"Maa, maa, but Kyou-chan~ we were all worried about you!"_

He groaned, leaning his head back against the wall. 'We'. He'd hoped to have seen and heard the last of 'we'. That was why he was here instead of somewhere - anywhere - closer ot the B.A.D area.

Umimi herself - they'd never gotten a family name out of her, despite th fact that she was by far old enough to be able to remember it - was not exactly one of the reasons why he'd wanted to stay away, but she certainly hadn't helped, either.

 _"Kyou-chan~"_ She tapped a few more times on the door before continuing. _"If you're not coming out, then I'm coming in~"_

Oh, yeah, and she could pick locks. He'd entirely forgotten about that. One of the hazards of not having come into contact with the old bunch in over five years, he supposed, and not one of the ones he'd have regretted .  He flopped his head again, the dull thunk his head made as it hit the wall satisfying him momentarily, the short, small amount of pain flaring up and making him _feel_ if just for a moment.

He could hear the lock being picked at. He could hear the clumsy progress she was making. He knew that if he _wanted_ \- if he truly wanted to - he could drive her away, but it wasn't worth the energy, and he couldn't bring himself to.

Meaning that, in the end, she made her way in with no objection other than a glare.

"Ah? Ehhh...."

What was with that weird look on her face?

"Kyou-chan, did ya know it looks like a bomb went off in here?"

"Huh?"

He blinked, and looked around. While before he'd only been focusing on the door, and on her, this time he tried to look at the room in general - and couldn't help but widen his eyes at the destruction he'd somehow wreaked.

The previously untouched vests were now scorched, most other things surrounding the place he'd put his makeshift bed thrown out, as if by a forcefield of some kind. Some things were broken, while others were simply lying in scattered pieces on the floor. Each surface was covered in varying degrees of blackened areas, just like, as Umimi had said, as if a bomb of some kind had gone off.

He swallowed, hard.

_I... I did this? I didn't do this, did I?_

_"You may currently be in your normal form, yet my power has not left you. You unleashed it when you wished me gone,"_ Ccapac explained.

Kiryu sagged back, shaking somewhat.

_"It should not happen again so long as you have control over your emotions enough to know what you happen to be doing and intending, Kyousuke. There is no reason to be afraid."_

Hn. He _would_ think so.

"Oi, Kyou-chan?"

Oh, and she was still there. Of _course_ she was.  He sighed, not looking at her, not sure if he wanted to, and just as unsure why. Whether it was to do with pride, or shame, or something else entirely.

"It's fine," he said hoarsely. "I'm fine. It... it's nothing."

"Hn. Looks like a pretty big 'nothin' to me.  Just look at these things, I remember you makin' these, you know? You were so damn excited, it was so cute~"

"Umimi... if you aren't going to say anything useful. Don't be here."

"Ah, ah ahhh~? What's that? Kyou-chan got so _mean_ while he was away!" The woman sighed - he could just see her pouting, even if he didn't turn his face in the right direction to know it for fact.  She then sat on his bed, and he pulled his feet away just in time to make sure she didn't sit on them. "Mn, I guess this means you really got turned down and good, huh."

"What-? What d'you mean?"

What was she even on about? Turned down?

"You was gonna go ask those kids if they wanted to join you in that silly quest of yours, right?"

"It's not 'silly'-"

"But yer still here!"

He felt a sharp blow to his head, and looked up in dull shock to see her pulling her fist away.

Umimi was one of the many people Zero Reverse had been less kind to.  She'd been somewhere around ten when it'd hit, or thereabouts, but she'd never given any of them any detail further than her age - and even that was possibly faked.  She had long black hair that was tied back into a high ponytail, and looked like she'd come out of any Japanese Yakuza gang, and if any of them were even operating in Satellite, he wouldn't have been surprised if she _was._

But for all that she spent most of what she earned or found on drink and was nearly always at least tipsy, if not full-out _drunk_ , and even though he was pretty sure he remembered her doing something harder once or twice, she was still one of the few people he'd grown up around who he didn't have entirely negative memories for. Who he hadn't learned to entirely distrust.

"The hell was that for?!"

"I just said, ya nitwit. Yer still here.  You- yeeeeesh, everyone else is _getting on with life_ , Kyou-chan."

He so wished she'd stop calling him that.

 _Yuusei isn't,_ the dark, not-Ccapac voice in his head was whispering in the back of his mind.

"I dunno about that Fudo kid - haven't _heard_ anything, y'know? - but the other two've been snapped up real quick, since they started showin' interest an' all." She was gesturing widely, and he was thankful that he was out of her way already or he'd have been warning her to becareful she didn't have one of his eyes out.  Maybe he still would have, if she hadn't started talking about his _team_.

"Well? What about Jack, then? And Crow?"

"Pretty curious, ain't ya, for someone who-"

"Just. _Tell me_."

She must have noticed he was serious, because her expression faltered for a moment before returning to its normal drunken smile.

"Ah, Jack, Jack... ah~  He was taken in by that, um. That other duel crazy gang we kept hearing about. I forget the name. The, um... uh..."

He ignored her mumbling as she tried to remember. He couldn't, either - it'd been so long, and there'd been so many teams, he couldn't begin to think which one she meant.

But it all boiled down to the fact that Jack was someone else's dog, now - no way would they let him be his own person when they'd see him as a potential _threat_.  Which was... wrong. It just struck him as _wrong_.

"What about Crow."

"Eh, that guy...? Think he got put away for sommat..."

"What? I thought you said-"

"What I _said_ was they got scouted."  She hadn't even said _that_ much, but knowing her, she probably thought she already had.  "An' then Security got all interested in the kid, and they used him as bait a time too many. Shame. If he weren't so duel crazy, he might've done well with us, yeah?"

She started to laugh, but Kiryu only scowled.

"Only over my dead body."

And he didn't mean his resurrected one. He meant his cold, six-feet-under one. He'd broken free of that gang, and he wouldn't let _Crow_ of all people into the fold.

Umimi only continued to laugh.

"Aaahahaha~ Kyou-chan... not like you've got a chance, I mean... hahhh... You'd haveta be able to do something _impossible_ to reach 'em now."

He deflated.  

That bad, huh.

 _"I did try to warn you, Kyousuke. That time, as it were, was running_ out."

And sighed. "I know," he said, responding to the god for the first time since they'd come into the timeline. "I didn't listen."

"Eh?"

"Umimi, you said 'impossible', right... hah. If you could turn back time, go back and do something over, would you?" He waited for a reply that didn't come. She was just staring at him, as though he'd gone insane.  It wasn't as though he blamed her, though. "Even if you thought you might just mess up and make it all worse... at least you'd try, right?  There'd be a chance to make it go right."

"Kyou-chan, no offense, kid, but you ain't making any _sense_."

She was wrong. He was making more sense than he had in _months_. What _felt_ like months, whether it was or not.

"I just can't be satisfied with this, y'know?"

She sighed.  "Yeah, yeah, I get ya. Just don't stay so down, got it?"

"Hn."

She left. Briefly, he wondered if he should go after them - it'd be easy enough to get Crow out, right, and as for Jack... well. That _would_ be a setback. Jack had always been stubborn as anything, and some punk kid trying to get him to stop whatever it was he was doing? That just wouldn't go down well.

"Ready?"

_"I've had plenty of time to gather up my energy after re-emerging. If you truly think this is the only option you have..."_

"I'd have already said so if there was anything else."

In the corridor, Umimi tensed suddenly, not understanding why, but assuming that it must be just another in the long line of effects of being continually drunk. She put it out of mind.


End file.
